Your Guide to Clean Label™

What is “clean label”?

Clean label is a consumer driven movement, demanding a return to real food and transparency through authenticity. Food products containing natural, familiar, simple ingredients that are easy to recognize, understand, and pronounce. No artificial ingredients or synthetic chemicals.

WHAT INGREDIENTS ARE CONSIDERED “CLEAN LABEL”?

The list of “non-clean label” ingredients has nearly 200 items (and counting!). For information on specific ingredients, use our search bar at the top of the page or peruse major influencers’ clean label lists.

WHO DEFINES “CLEAN LABEL” GUIDELINES?

It all starts off with consumer perception of “natural”. This then influences decisions made by powerful food groups — food service and retail grocery store chains. Companies compile official lists, explicitly stating the ingredients that cannot be present in food items in their stores or restaurants. e.g. Whole Foods calls their list “Unacceptable Ingredients for Food” and Panera calls their list the “No No List”.